Posted on 11/30/2012 12:10:03 PM PST by Kaslin
Every schoolchild with enough smarts and curiosity to get beyond the latest video game of "Call of Duty" ought to go see "Lincoln," the movie, and check out the references and his own attention span. It requires patience, but it shows through dramatic action how a self-taught rustic from the deep backwoods had the emotional and intellectual discipline to overcome poverty and grow up to be a president to rank among the greatest.
This is not about the American Dream or a Horatio Alger story. (Does anybody remember him?) Nor is it mythmaking. It's made of sterner stuff than that. Although there are 16,000 or so books about Lincoln, and a famous movie with Henry Fonda as the young Lincoln, there's enough freshness in this late portrait to animate anyone eligible to watch a movie with the PG-13 rating.
To whet an appetite, there's the excerpt available on the Internet where the president, played by Daniel Day Lewis, explains his political philosophy to two young men working in the White House telegraph office. Lincoln recalls Euclid's 2,000-year-old dissertation on mechanical reasoning, the principle that "things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other." Euclid says it's "self-evident." Lincoln agrees.
Such nuggets of wisdom abound, along with references from Shakespeare and a bawdy story about a portrait of George Washington hanging in an outhouse to inspire relief for British soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Lincoln was a learned man, but he was earthy, too. He drew on deep learning and applied it widely. He talks in parables and finds a story to illustrate just about every situation and strategy.
In one scene, while he waits with his Cabinet for news of the shelling of Wilmington, N.C., he begins a story: "I heard tell once." The phrase so exasperates Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that he walks away, telling the president, "I don't believe that I can bear to hear another one of your stories right now." This is no marble president on a pedestal.
But Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" is an epic of sorts. It begins in the middle of things. The Civil War, though nearing the end, has been going on for four years. Lincoln is the old "war horse," but unlike Spielberg's earlier movie of that name, "Lincoln" has only one brutal battle scene.
The most poignant evocation of war shows Lincoln riding through a field of ripped and rotting corpses, and Lincoln takes off his stovepipe hat in homage to the dead, North and South and Americans all. This is not a hymn to "arms and the man" so much as a long mournful dirge played on the strings of banjos, fiddles and the keys of a parlor piano. It's as gritty and earthbound as the America of Mark Twain.
This "Lincoln" is not about heroism and ideals, but about reality and fighting for what's right, even when "right" is seen from two distinctly different points of view -- or, as Lincoln puts it, "the right as God gives us to see the right." If there was no room to compromise over slavery before the war, the struggles for compromise are not over afterward because the winds of war still blow. They merely change direction.
While every schoolchild knows that Abe Lincoln freed the slaves, not many that I've met actually know how he did it. Few seem to understand that the Emancipation Proclamation freed only the slaves in the 11 Confederate states. Fewer still know why Lincoln thought it crucial before he began his second term, and before the war was over, to enact the 13th Amendment to give all men equality under the law. That's the tight focus of the movie.
I watched "Lincoln" with two precocious teenagers, who in spite of their bravado and smarts leaned toward the screen to listen closely to Lincoln's complicated and legalistic explanation of why the country needed the 13th Amendment. They conceded they learned things they didn't know about both the law and Lincoln. (So did I.)
This is a talky movie. Compared to popular 3-D spectacles, it's muted and low-key. Many reviewers have written about how it's "relevant" today, and that Barack Obama could learn from Lincoln's cunning to keep from falling off the fiscal cliff. A knowing titter goes through audiences in Washington when Thaddeus Stevens, the radical Republican abolitionist from Pennsylvania, castigates Lincoln for his inability to win legislative compromise. "I lead," Lincoln says. "You ought to try it."
But it's about a lot more than relevance. It informs as it entertains, engages, enrages, champions, challenges and reminds once again how hard it is to bring about change in a democracy -- and do it with malice toward none.
Try putting this together in your mind:
However, four states published their reasoning in individual state decrees, which of course, were not legally representative of the state actions.
Therefore, any notion that these documents were formal, legal explanations is totally false.
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
What’s the matter pea, someone step on your tail?
Say, do you suppose they issued those statements in lieu of Hallmark Christmas cards?
"Read the ordinances of secession passed by the various southern states. A couple of them may not mention slavery as a primary cause of secession, but most do, loud and clear".
He is addressing the "ordinances of secession".
The Ordinances of Secession, originally numbering 7 (eventually becoming 11) do not list any causes, a direct refutation of the poster's characterization, and your repeated argument. Read for yourself here.
All were the legislatively approved, legal language documents by which each of the seceded states severed their connection with the Federal Union. All were the result of officially approved state legislators, voting in state conventions, legislatures, or by popular referendum.
What has come to be known as the declarations of causes, given in various historical contexts, were efforts of assorted entities tending to disclose their reasons for secession. As you pointed out, some originated from officials, others from witnesses, clerks, newspaper reporters, or whoever. None of these documents were officially derived from legislation, despite your weak attempts at trying to develop inferences from who printed what and on what date.
Again, he said and you supported that, "A couple of them (ordinances of secession) may not mention slavery as a primary cause of secession, but most do, loud and clear".
Most do?
In addition to the afformentioned Official Ordinances produced by a total of 11 state legislatures or conventions, there were others of nominal importance: 2 rump state conventions, 1 territorial convention, and 2 Indian tribes that published one or more secession documents around the beginning of the war.
Maybe the poster meant that they should all be takne together. Well, if taken altogether, they published at least 20 documents declaring or otherwise affirming their secession.
As also is known, the conventions of 4 of those 11 states adopted an additional “Declaration of Causes” as a nonbinding legislative resolution, and serving as public information.
To reiterate the facts and specifically and only with regard to the official documents of secession, none of the original 7 and eventual 11 ordinances mentioned slavery as a cause of their decision to leave the Union.
As you wanted to point out in support of the poster's error, the convention of South Carolina also adopted a letter of causes addressed to all the other slave holding southern states outlining their list of justifications and urging others to join them. You offered up this document, but is the same type of casual narrative offered by only 3 other states. It is interesting reading but nothing more than ancillary composition.
Out of the 20 total declarations, ordinances, and other secession documents only 6 mentioned slavery in any context beyond geographical nomenclature (only 5 mention it at any length - the sixth is in a single brief clause).
Fourteen of those documents specify other causes, either in addition to slavery or without mentioning it at all.
So, what is the conclusion? Essentially about the only thing that is obvious is that your postings have been wrong.
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
It must be terribly lonely grubbing for the least likely logical rationales all the time. I do have to admire your dedication to The Lost Cause - misguided though it may be.
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
I know you are but what am I? lol
I grant that not everyone who supported secession was motivated by the same factors to the same degree. If it were "all about slavery" secession wouldn't have gotten as far as it did. But without slavery and the perceived threats to it, you wouldn't have seen a secessionist movement in 1860.
Essentially about the only thing that is obvious is that your postings have been wrong.
People can decide that for themselves. If there's anyone out there following this, they don't need you making pronouncements for them. And I trust they'll have the good sense to see this as something more than a personal quarrel between us.
"Essentially" (a pretty annoying way to begin a sentence) you're saying that these assemblies voted for secession for no reason or any reason you choose to make up, and we can't use contemporary documents written or authorized by people in those assemblies as evidence to establish just why they voted as they did.
If you want some kind of pat on the head because you demonstrated that the original poster was wrong in using the phrase "ordinances of secession" to refer to other documents, fine. Consider your head patted. But the discussion has gone beyond than that. And you can't trade on your little success forever.
If any of this is still in doubt I suggest you look at the papers and speeches of the secession commissioners officially appointed by the various conventions or state governments. Add their papers and utterances to those you've already mentioned and the picture is that much clearer. If you need to go further, perhaps there exist records of the conventions themselves. I doubt they'd contradict the documents we've discussed.
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
Yes.
“They are pretty clearly talking about slavery as something those states have in common and about threats to slavery that motivated secession.”
You make two assertions in one sentence. You jumped beyond what was being said by them to make an assertion that is wrong and not supported by the documents.
“But without slavery and the perceived threats to it, you wouldn't have seen a secessionist movement in 1860.”
You are now moving beyond what is being discussed here into your own biased realm of thinking.
“And I trust they'll have the good sense to see this as something more than a personal quarrel between us.”
No quarrel....just you trying to manipulate the truth, and being corrected for doing so.
“Essentially you're saying that these assemblies voted for secession for no reason or any reason you choose to make up, and we can't use contemporary documents written or authorized by people in those assemblies as evidence to establish just why they voted as they did.
I did not say that. Again, you are trying to kidnap the discussion and twist my commentary.
“If you want some kind of pat on the head because you demonstrated that the original poster was wrong in using the phrase “ordinances of secession” to refer to other documents, fine. Consider your head patted.”
Again, you are twisting the facts into a canard. That is not the poster's primary error, nor what I was demonstrating as his error. I would also add that you choose a very immature way of admitting that you were wrong.
“If any of this is still in doubt I suggest you look at the papers and speeches of the secession commissioners officially appointed by the various conventions or state governments.”
I have done that at length and on numerous occasions. If you had done the same, you would have realized early on that I was correct in pointing out the other poster's error.
“Add their papers and utterances to those you've already mentioned and the picture is that much clearer.”
Actually a thorough study of the documents shows just how diverse the arguments for (and against) secession actually were. It would surprise you if you decided to enter into some scholarly reading rather than wasting your time writing your type of drivel here.
“If you need to go further, perhaps there exist records of the conventions themselves. I doubt they'd contradict the documents we've discussed.”
It is obvious that you do not know if any of that sentence is true or false.
I know you are but what am I? lol
When you want to be rational and pursue a purposeful discussion, rather than just contradict and insult, get back to me and maybe I'll respond.
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
You replace reason with insults and arrogance, which is the way you always end your laborious debates.
Neither scholarship nor intellect seem to be inhabiting your thoughts on this topic.
Perhaps you should embrace your exhaustion.
I know you are but what am I? lol
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
I know you are but what am I? lol
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
I know you are but what am I? lol
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
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